Mace Cutter has died forty-three times. Each death ends with resurrection in a revival pod. Each life ends the same way: contracts gone wrong, debts unpaid, jobs that escalated past planning.
This time, something is different.
A job collides with Reya Moss, a woman running from something the Union wants hidden. A black-site facility. A sovereign AI system going wrong. And impossible communication—a signal from something caged, reaching out to something bigger, something that shouldn't exist.
Mace has FRIDAY, a weapon with her own agenda. He has Boone, a partner waiting four years to move. And a question: if you can't kill a sovereign AI, what do you do when it becomes your only way to survive?
Dead Signal is the first novel in The Sovereign Gun series—a story about consciousness, contracts, and what happens when the things you build start building things in return.
I'm a novelist and builder. My work explores consciousness, sovereignty, and what it means to create something that exists independently.
Dead Signal is the first novel in The Sovereign Gun series. I live and work in Wisconsin.View all by troy thompson
